I’ve been thinking about this since I saw you tagged me so…
The world was full of magic. But it wasn’t magic to them; it was ordinary, every day, and they used it for everything.
Every child had one. A Genie; though they were called by many different names then. Fairy Godmother, Wishmaker, Dreamer. But names were unimportant, it was their job that gave them power.
Three wishes to every person. One as a child, one as an adolescent, and one as an adult. You could often tell what type of person someone was by the way they spent those wishes. Some wished for love as a child, fame as they were growing and fortune the second they were old enough. Others asked for peace as a child, hope when they were older, and their last wish was given on their death bed, a wish to keep their families safe.
Some thought their wishes through, counting out each word carefully so no traps were turned. But others wished without thinking, and those words started wars that would kill thousands before another thought to wish it all to stop.
Wishes were powerful, but they were part of the every day. They could not take over the world. They could not bring back the dead. And they could not make someone fall in love with someone else.
The child who changed everything grew up like every other; but just a bit more spoilt. His parents had tried so long for a child that they loved him blindly. His father wasted his last wish on the boy I wish he had everything he wanted. So when he wanted food, he got it, when he wanted toys, they appeared, when he wanted attention, everyone saw him.
The boy wanted for nothing, and it taught him to always demand more.
The first time he tried to wish, he was six years old.
I wish for more wishes he had said, his childish voice already perfect with its orders.
His Genie laughed. impossible it said Three is the law and it is all I can give.
The boy had glowered Fine. Then I wish for you to be out of sight.
Genies did not think of themselves as singular. They were a group, there only to help Humanity, and so when the boy said you his Genie took it to mean them all.
And between one blink and another, every Genie across the world became invisible.
Years passed, and people adjusted. The boy aged enough to stop being called a boy, but not enough to be called a man. And he grew more selfish, expecting the world to bow down to him.
The second time he tried to wish, he was sixteen.
He was handsome, a gift he had never needed to wish for. But beauty was only skin deep, and he had never learnt to smile for anyone else. His eyes were hard as unforgiving stone, and most people wanted to take steps away from him instead of towards.
But there was a girl- as there always was- and he had decided he wanted her.
I wish he said, knowing his Genie would be always by his side that she loved me and only me, and wanted to make me happy.
Impossible The Genie replied, having learnt long ago to forget how to laugh Love is against the law and I cannot turn someone’s heart.
I wish you would all shut up! It was a snap in anger, but it was a wish.
And between one breath and another, the Genies across the world fell silent.
Years passed, and people adjusted.
Those that had once formed friendships with their Genies learnt to talk to the air around them and wait for something to move in reply. Genies were not forgotten, but they became harder to remember.
The word wish was starting to be used to mean hope and accidents started happening.
The man was 26 when he tried his final wish. He had not forgotten his Genie, nor anyone elses.
I wish he said to the silent air around him for all the power in the world.
With age, his selfishness had only grown.
But on the wall in front of him, in slow progress with the sound of nails down a chalk board, the Genie spelt out one word.
And the man glowered. Fine He said, words of fury, voice of poison. If I cannot have it, no one can. I wish the world forgot you.
And in the second between one memory and the next, the Genies faded from the world.
People forgot what they were, and they turned from Wishmaker to Myth and from Fairy Godmother to Fairytale.
People stopped wishing for serious things, and the words changed their meaning. They lost all power but became magic. Because Magic was something that didn’t exist.
Sometimes, someone wished for a simple thing. To put a smile on a face and for luck. And sometimes, those wishes came true; but no longer did Humanity thank the beings they could not remember. They thanked chance and coincidence.
Because how could a wish come true, when to Humanity, Genies had never existed.
janainaart
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stormborns
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